Neurological disorders including neurodegenerative disorders can undergo pathologically related reactions between proteins and the redox-active metal ions, such as zinc, copper or iron. These reactions generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), which have the capacity to damage cellular components by oxidizing proteins, lipid bilayers, and DNA. This can result in alterations of protein conformations, enzyme activities and cause protein aggregation.
ROS include free radicals such as superoxide anion, hydroxyl radical and other molecular species such as hydrogen peroxide (Bush and Goldstein (2001)). Hydroxyl radicals are the most reactive and damaging generated ROS. They are predominantly formed by a Fenton reaction between transition metals (usually iron(II) or copper(I)) and hydrogen peroxide.
Whilst cells possess antioxidant systems to protect against ROS damage, including protective enzymes such as copper-zinc superoxide dismutase, these enzymes contain metals. Cells must therefore maintain a careful balance between free and bound pro-oxidant versus antioxidant metal ions, which are critical to cellular homeostasis. It is generally considered that the aging brain has a slow and progressive imbalance between antioxidant defenses and intracellular concentrations of ROS.
There is a need to identify compounds designed to manage and modulate ionic biological metals that, when unregulated, have an established association with a growing number of diseases including those characterized by the presence of oxidative stress, protein aggregation and intracellular or extracellular metal imbalance.